A purchaser of a mobile communication device has many options as to how to pay for air time. One manner in which to pay for time is to sign up for a calling plan. In particular, a purchaser can choose a calling plan with a service provider that gives the user an allotment of minutes per month for a certain price. Any overages are billed to the customer. To purchase such plans, a service provider may run a credit check on the purchaser, or require their possession of a valid credit card and/or require income proof in some markets.
Instead of purchasing a plan, an airtime customer may prefer to purchase a prepaid block of airtime. Accordingly, the customer will have a finite amount of time or calling value in a prepaid block of airtime. Once the prepaid block is consumed, the customer must purchase a new block of airtime.
As the prepaid airtime subscriber uses the communication device during active mode, the balance of remaining available airtime diminishes from the initial prepaid subscription. Unless the user has kept track of the minutes used, and knows the tariff or roaming charges, the user must rely on the service provider to inform him of the remaining balance. To learn the remaining balance of a prepaid subscription, a balance query is typically initiated by the user while the mobile communication device is in idle mode.
Mobile communication devices may each have more than one service provider. The telephone number and characters to input for balance information and the formats of the balance information query and balance information message may be different for each service provider. The service provider's prepay server telephone number may be five digits that must be input on the mobile device's key pad. Additional steps may be required as well. The steps provided to the user are most often written in a user's manual relating to the service provider's services. If the communications device is made for only one service provider then the steps for obtaining balance information may be automated, but prepaid airtime subscribers generally want the flexibility to buy prepaid airtime from different service providers. Furthermore device manufacturers may find it logistically difficult to provide different models for each service provider.
Prepay users may have incentive to change service providers based on promotional offers and other circumstances. For some users, it can be difficult to follow and carry out the steps necessary to learn their remaining balance. Moreover, if a prepaid balance message in response to a query is in a format such as SMS, a user may have difficulty interpreting the message to determine the remaining prepaid balance. It would be beneficial if the user could learn the remaining prepaid balance without manually entering the service provider's balance information telephone number and without following certain other steps. It would also be beneficial if the prepaid balance and a subscription expiration data were presented to a user in an easy to interpret manner. Subscription expiration data may also be referred to as validity information. It would be further beneficial were prepay uses able to view their balance amount and validity/expiration date information in a consistent manner regardless of which service provider they were using at a particular time.